After their early and immense success, The Prodigy have found it difficult to really maintain the momentum. Words: Will PooleWith mental songs like Smack My Bitch Up to compete with (and here Pipsqueak Poole shows his young age, as for some of us the Prodigy peaked with Jericho and Charly…Ed) they had their work cut out if Invaders Must Die were to push the envelope. The previous album, Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned, fell short of the mark somewhat. Would this be the same story? 

I ripped open the packaging and whacked it into the CD drive, turned the volume up to ‘13’ and waited to be hit by a wall of sound. And it didn't disappoint. I felt like Blur in the Song Two video. An enormous feeling of wanting this to be played somewhere larger and louder came over me. So it may be a bit of a throwback, a taste of their former years, but that’s no bad thing and it’s still got that punk feel that makes you want to hit back against the man and paint large A’s in black on every wall and throw Molotov cocktails at bankers.

Prodigy are well and truly back in the room with a heavy-hitting sound – Thunder and Omen are awesome and the remix of the latter by Noisia must be heard to be believed! The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl features on drums in Run With The Wolves, and Take Me To The Hospital features sounds of The Prodigy’s past from tracks like Out Of Space. It’s not new, it’s just them doing what they do best, making punk-infused dance music that is produced to perfection. And lets get real here; it’s a hell of a lot better than nearly all of the shit that’s being released in our pop-fixated music industry at the moment. Some say The Prodigy should take their seats and retire, but I think there’s never been a better time for a bit of heavy bass to blow the old cobwebs off the dance music genre, get it back on its feet and hit back hard!